GUEST HOST:

IRENE NATIVIDAD

PANELISTS:

SIOBHAN SAM BENNETT,

DANIELLE BELTON,

CARI DOMINGUEZ,

NICOLE KUROKAWA NEILY

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2011

TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED BY DC TRANSCRIPTION – WWW.DCTMR.COM

MS. NATIVIDAD: This week on To the Contrary with Bonnie Erbe, up first, an exclusive interview with White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, plus journalist Ron Suskind on claims women felt frozen out in the early days of the Obama presidency. Behind the headlines, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm on her tumultuous years leading that state and what America can learn from Michigan.

(Musical break.)

MS. NATIVIDAD: Hello, I’m Irene Natividad, in for Bonnie Erbe. Welcome to To the Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives. I’m happy to report Bonnie will return to the show in two weeks. We begin today with charges that the early Obama White House was not a good place for women.

MR. RON SUSKIND [Author, “Confidence Men”]: (From tape.) The boys teamed up with the boys and the girls with the girls, and all of a sudden the boys are running things and the women felt left out.

MS. NATIVIDAD: These charges are in a new book, “Confidence Men,” by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Ron Suskind. He details how top female advisors felt excluded from key policy decisions. Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett does not dispute gender friction in the early days, but it was addressed.

MS. VALERIE JARRETT [Senior Advisor to the President]: (From tape.) The president was very aware that there were some issues and we did spend some time talking about it. And I suggested this dinner, and he thought it was a terrific idea. And in fact, set it up immediately and encouraged women to speak very openly and candidly. One of the things that I was concerned about was, when you’re in front of the president, will you actually say what’s on your mind and to their credit, everyone did. And he said, look, I want you to come in and speak what’s on your mind. You don’t have to stand on ceremony around me. You don’t have to wait to be recognized.

MS. NATIVIDAD: In the book, former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn is quoted as saying “this place would be in court for a hostile workplace because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women.

And Christina Romer, former chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers is quoted as saying, “I felt like a piece of meat,” after being excluded in a meeting. Although both Dunn and Romer say the quotes were taken out of context, Suskind defends the book’s credibility and explains what may have caused friction among staffers.

MR. SUSKIND: (From tape.) It was chaos. And I think some of the gender issues flowed not from necessarily the bad or misguided inclinations or clumsiness or bullying of the guys, but from a kind of a mess there, where people weren’t sure who was supposed to go to what meeting. And so you know, all of a sudden, people who were friends only went and the women are like, why wasn’t I read in on that document or I don’t play golf with you guys or tennis or basketball and I didn’t hear that. All of those processes contributed – or the lack of process or good process contributed to this gender thing.

MS. JARRETT: (From tape.) The world was in chaos. The administration was not and I think that the president had a very even, steady hand through one of the worse financial crises in our nation’s history. Inevitably tensions flared. He managed just through a very difficult time, with a lot of very strong personalities. In terms of Anita Dunn, Anita to this day is one of President Obama’s closest advisors. She was here at the White House last week for a meeting with the president. I had dinner with her last night. And I know that she believes very strongly in the environment that he has created here in the White House.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Suskind had 700 hours of interviews for the book and found women knew they had something to contribute and their voices were important.

MR. SUSKIND: (From tape.) That’s the way a lot of the women started to feel. If the president would listen to us more than he’d listened to the men, he might be better off. We’re here to serve him. Whatever he wants to do, whichever direction he wants to go, we’ll be here to nourish him, support him, and serve him.

MS. JARRETT: (From tape.) I think as in any new institution, when people came in, when they first were getting their footing, people weren’t sure exactly whether their opinions were valued. And what’s most important to know is that the president responded to that decisively. He made sure that he had a meeting with a group of women to talk through their issue. And if you look at what’s happened since then, his White House counsel who was promoted is a woman. His two deputy chiefs of staff are women. He’s had key women from the beginning in every part of his administration in an unprecedented way, more than any other president before him. And everybody’s very comfortable speaking their mind right now.

MS. NATIVIDAD: So, Sam Bennett, president of Women’s Campaign Fund, do you think the support for women’s groups and women voters around the country would be impacted by this revelation?

MS. BENNETT: Absolutely not. When you compare Obama’s position on women’s issues, everything from reproductive choices and options to fair pay, there’s absolutely no competition with the Republicans that are running for president.

MS. DOMINGUEZ: These revelations should serve as a wakeup call for women that it is access and influence what’s going to make a difference in the workplace.

MS. BELTON: I think while some will be disappointed – I mean ultimately, he did act on their concerns – so this is all you really ever want from your employer.

MS. KUROKAWA: Yes, I agree with Danielle, I think that the fact that he was able to recognize it, pivot, and address the problem is encouraging.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Cari Dominguez, you were former chair of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a veteran of two administrations.

MS. DOMINGUEZ: Yes.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Does any of this surprise you?

MS. DOMINGUEZ: Not at all. Not at all. What really surprises me is that we thought that it was going to be different this time around.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Why did you think that?

MS. DOMINGUEZ: Well, because of all the talk and all the chatter about being inclusive and open. And my sense is yes, you know, and I’ve audited lots of companies and there’re lots of women in these companies, but the numbers don’t make a difference if you don’t have these individuals in positions of influence and if you don’t have access to the top leader in our nation. And they felt excluded. They felt like in a lot of fields were being made – in the – (inaudible) – corps and some of these other places. So I think it’s a lesson to be learned and not just in corporate America, but in the way we lead our government.

MS. NATIVIDAD: All of you are veterans of Washington. Do you think it’s peculiar to the White House and the atmosphere that it generates that this kind of thing happens? I mean is this any different, you know? (Laughter.)

MS. KUROKAWA: No, I have had – I mean I’ve seen many of my friends in the right over the past week crowing over these revelations, saying, look people who espouse to be very pro-women actually are just sexists. That doesn’t make it okay. And – and the fact that they were able to improve upon it I think is really important. But I think the White House is sort of a weird rarefied atmosphere and where everybody is trying to elbow each other out of the way. So I don’t think – I think in a way it’s almost like equal opportunity, trying, you know, smack your competition down.

MS. BELTON: It’s a make or break kind of thing. People work their whole lives trying to get to the White House. And when you don’t get that access to the president that you see somebody else getting, you know – gender, race, whatever – you want that access. This is your career. This is your – these are your goals.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Well, a lot of senior diversity officers at companies always say that if the CEO is not committed to gender diversity, nothing will happen. So this is one case where it took the CEO of the country to say this won’t do. So what kind of lesson do you think we can draw from this, Sam?

MS. BENNETT: I think that everyone’s pointed out. First of all, Obama was responsible. We give him a lot of credit for that. The other thing is the women complained. Now, I think that that’s the key thing. And I thing Valerie Jarrett, who was a woman, heard those complaints and as a woman went to the president. So I think Valerie played a very key leadership – I don’t think you guys agree with me – but a very key leadership role in this, and that’s a real model for what we need to do in all of the halls of power.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Why do you think the women backtrack on their comments – Dunn and Romer?

MS. BENNETT: Well, I mean put yourself in their position. You have a job they have to do later on after this.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Do you think somebody should have been fired along the way?

MS. BENNETT: No, I absolutely do not. I think that Obama would be sending absolutely the wrong message if he did that.

MS. KUROKAWA: I think that shows that we really – that we need to be vigilant across the board, though. Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook had done a terrific TED talk a few months ago about sexism. And then she said in retrospect she realized that all the questions she answered afterwards were – there were questions from men that she, even talking about sexism – we just have – we have to be really vigilant. We need to be really conscious. So even – you know.

MS. BENNETT: And if I could, I think that the Name It. Change It campaign that we’ve been doing, where it shows how on the present sexism against women is really a root problem. And so I think that that’s a really good example of that.

MS. DOMINGUEZ: I think power is the greatest aphrodisiac we have in politics. And I think that’s what we’re seeing. We’re seeing a real power struggle between genders.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Anywhere, whether in the White House or in a corporation. Now, the president’s polling numbers are in historic lows right now. What do you think this book will do? Do you think the Republican candidates are going to use this, Cari, in their – you know, individual campaigns?

MS. DOMINGUEZ: Well, yes, well Republicans –

MS. NATIVIDAD: Yes?

MS. DOMINGUEZ: – in the Bush administration, they had a lot of women in positions of leadership. He’s talking about Margaret Spellings and Fran Townsend, and Karen Hughes, and Condi Rice. So you know, we had a very good record of putting individuals in positions of influence because secretary of state, top communications director, so that – I think that was a key thing and that’s a lesson to be learned that we really not just need to have the numbers, but the appointments to key roles that would –

MS. NATIVIDAD: But these women were in key roles.

MS. DOMINGUEZ: No, I think the Republicans –

MS. NATIVIDAD: I mean chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, I think that’s pretty key. And she’s saying, I wasn’t invited to meetings. So it’s not even naming the women. It is making sure that they are included.

MS. BELTON: But I feel like it’s a double-edged sword for Republican candidates who want to use it against the president because reality is, if you point out, well you had a woman problem, people are going to look at your own campaign, your own offices, your own record and point out if you have any lady problems.

MS. NATIVIDAD: But do you think that that’s kind of progress in some way that everybody now is so piecey, I got to have my women in the campaign?

MS. BENNETT: Well, the thing to the matter is it was unmarried black women, African-American women that elected Obama. So if I’m a Republican, I’m going to try to peal as many of those women often as I possibly can.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Well, that’s why I was asking you earlier.

MS. BENNETT: The Republicans are absolutely going to use this and quite frankly, we see the women issue around Obama coming up everywhere across. And that’s what they’re trying to do.

MS. KUROKAWA: I hate it. I think it’s – I think that’s stupid. I think why would you go with your eighth best argument? I mean quite – like I don’t agree on a lot of his economic platform. I think they need to keep their eye on the prize. They need to keep their eye on jobs and the economy. And so to talk about this is such a silly distraction. And Mike Allen from Politico today was talking about how Suskind is actually not really considered a really legit journalist. I mean you had a – no, he has a history of coming up with these kind of damning allegations. He did to the Bush administration. And so why would we – I mean why would we talk about these sort of unsubstantiated things, where some of these women are backtracking these claims and saying their quotes have been taken out of context, when this is not even the thrust of the book? I mean the –

MS. NATIVIDAD: Exactly. Exactly. I mean there were other revelations in there that seemed to indicate that it was a White House in chaos. Nobody was really leading. But this item regarding women is the one that has caught the headlines, which is one of the reasons for covering it. (Laughter.

MS. DOMINGUEZ: But at the end of the day, it’s going to be jobs. It’s going to be the economy. Or it’s going to be sway voters. A book is not going to make that – that any kind of a difference. I think, you know, the old James Carville’s “it’s the economy, stupid,” that’s the way it’s going to go.

MS. NATIVIDAD: I agree. Behind the headlines, former Governor Jennifer Granholm, the first female governor of Michigan was the chief executive of the state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation, while still managing to be a wife and mother. To the Contrary sat down with her and her husband to discuss the difficulties facing the nation today and the similarities between her tenure as governor and the current national challenges.

(Begin video segment.)

GOVERNOR JENNIFER GRANHOLM (D-MI): It was a campaign of hope and change and I was the first woman and there were all sorts of enthusiasm. And it was a lot of expectation and we were hit, slammed with praises from day one. There’re so many parallels with what’s going on in D.C. We wanted to be able to invest and we couldn’t because we just didn’t have the money to do it. In my first term, my first four and a half years, I cut taxes 99 times in the hopes tat it was going to spur the economic recovery that the theorists would have us believe even today. I – by the time I left office, we had cut – I’d cut government more than any other state in the country by far. We were 48th in the nation in terms of the size of government. Our corporate tax burden had dropped more than any state in the country. You would think with all of that that we would be number one in employment instead of number one in unemployment.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Granholm entered her state and was immediately hit by one crisis after another. She took on the toughest economic climate in a state at the time and eventually turned it around. But it was not tax cuts and smaller government that is saving her state.

GOV. GRANHOLM: The reality was those solutions did not work in the global economy that was pulling our jobs overseas. We could never compete on cost. What we can compete on as a nation is on quality. And that requires investment. When the Obama administration came in and enabled us to invest, ah, all of a sudden, things started to turn around. Yes, they intervened in the market to save the auto industry. If they hadn’t have done that, our unemployment rate in Michigan would be over 20 percent.

Yes, they gave us the opportunity to partner with the private sector to build the battery industry for the electric vehicle. They gave us the opportunity to strategically invest in the clean energy economy. And with all of these strategic smart investments, we were able to grow our economy. In fact, in 2010, our unemployment rate dropped six times faster than the national average.

MS. NATIVIDAD: The parallels between Michigan’s economic challenges and those facing America today are remarkable. Granholm says the United States government should see her tenure as a roadmap for economic recovery and jobs.

GOV. GRANHOLM: We need to cut where we can, to invest where we must. Can you imagine the innovation that could be sparked across the country if you had a jobs competition, jobs race to the top, where you incented the state governments to do things that we hadn’t done before – streamline, permitting partner with the private sector, identify your strengths, create industrial parks that are innate to your strength – the kinds of things that are being done all over the globe, everywhere but the United States.

MS. NATIVIDAD: As Granholm tried to rebuild her state, her family stayed by her side. Her husband recalls one incident where he realized how public their life had become and how hard Granholm worked to bolster Michigan’s economy.

MR. DAN MULHERN [Co-Author, “A Governor’s Story]: A young man about 45 or so came up to Jennifer and started talking. And I could tell that he was really, you know, destroyed. And he started talking to her about how he’d lost his factory job. He had two kids. He and his wife had made a decision a long time ago that he was going to lead. They had no real source of income. You know, he starts tearing up in a coffee shop. So you know, when you lead a state through times like that, those kinds of individual encounters – Jennifer’s tough as nails – and so her natural defense mechanism is accept, adjust, advance, keep moving, what can we do, how do we save it. You know, okay, we lost that one, how do we bring in another factory? Where do I go, Sweden, Japan? What can I do to replace those jobs? How do we make it more competitive for business?

MS. NATIVIDAD: As the first female governor of Michigan, Granholm broke barriers, but she doesn’t feel as though she was treated differently for being a woman.

GOV. GRANHOLM: Since I’ve never been a male, I don’t know how they would have been treated. I – and I don’t – I don’t like to think of things in that way. You know, I’m a pre-Title IX baby, so I didn’t get the benefit of all of that. And I really – I tell our girls who are competitors, you’re so lucky that you have been raised at a time when it’s good for girls to compete and to enjoy the game, enjoy the competition. I’m not necessarily wired in the way that’s constantly be saying, well, they’re only treating me like that because I’m a girl. You know, but it was a first and I certainly had to play ball with the boys in a very significant way.

MS. NATIVIDAD: And she hopes she can inspire young women to be more politically active even though her own daughters are not looking to run for office any time soon.

GOV. GRANHOLM: I don’t think they’re interested in the least. (Laughs.) My two daughters aren’t. But I do think – I would hope that despite the challenges that are described in this book that women would see themselves as helping to lead in the political realm, too. Obviously there’re a lot of women who do, but few governors, few executives who are leading. And – yes, the spotlight is on you and yes, you have to have, you know, skin as thick as a rhinoceros, but I think that bringing that perspective to the rule is really, really important.

(End video segment.)

MS. NATIVIDAD: So Cari Dominguez, do you think she was persuasive in creating the parallel between Michigan’s economic crisis and the national one?

MS. DOMINGUEZ: Well, first of all, kudos to the governor. I think she did a great job turning the economy around, while keeping the home fires burning. That’s a lot of juggling that you have to do. But I personally – I think there’re some similarities between what happened in the State of Michigan and what’s happening certainly with a high unemployment, but it’s also the luck of the draw. I think the main industry in Michigan, being the automotive industry – I mean when you compare Michigan to Texas – oil rich, petroleum rich – they didn’t have the type of problems. And so I think a lot of our issues really are state specific, depends on what it is that they produce and what they can offer. But I do think the efficiency and certainly the unemployment and a lot of the things that happened in Michigan as well, a lot of the workers who were able and had the skills migrated to other states. They went to South Carolina – so you were left with the ones that were either underemployed or unemployable because they didn’t have the right skills. So there’re all kinds of issues that she wasn’t able to address with lots of stimulus funding, but she was able to do it.

MS. NATIVIDAD: But there – the other parallel that I see is a personal one, which has to do with, you know, the high expectations – first woman, first African- American president, you know, that sense of hope and then the realities that they both had to face. So Sam Bennett, you have been tracking women candidates for many years, do you see that parallel as well?

MS. BENNETT: Well, I think certainly when a woman steps and particularly in a gubernatorial seat, man, what have we had? Sixteen women governors in this country throughout the history of our nation and thousands upon thousands of men governors.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Right.

MS. BENNETT: There’s a lot of pressure there. The thing that we’re very proud of, having endorsed her from the very beginning of her career, all the way through, is she won by 51 percent in her first election, won by 56 percent in her reelect. That’s the real story there.

MS. NATIVIDAD: When the economy was already bad –

MS. BENNETT: That’s exactly right. And so I think that she had the confidence – it was a tough reelect, but she had the confidence of the people of her state. I think that’s a real story that she really earned that.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Well, the strategy that she’s promoting – they’re promoting is discussing that work for them was not the cutting taxes business. And I wanted to ask both of you because Washington is awash with tax cut talk and also cutting government spending. And she said that didn’t work.

MS. KUROKAWA: No, what worked was a giant infusion of federal dollars. Me, as a Virginia taxpayer or my parents as Illinois taxpayers, that’s what fixed them. And you know, we ended up propping up some industries that quite frankly are not sustainable on their own and would not have been sustainable without money from outside. So it’s great to talk about the batteries that we have created in the Chevy Volt factory, but if we actually – if we had to pay full market value for some of these products, they’re not competitive on their own merits. And you know, we can’t compete on cost because it’s not just the cost of the cars and the cost of production, but there’s also the cost of the workers. And why is that? Because of a lot of the union packages and compensation packages that have been negotiated. So there’s a lot else that’s going on. This isn’t – I can’t think that she can take credit –

MS. NATIVIDAD: But you –

MS. KUROKAWA: – and she can’t just blame tax cuts for this either.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Well, although she says that she cut, cut, cut in terms of government spending as much as she could, so she ended up 48 – Michigan ended up being 48th state in terms of government spending, that didn’t work and tax cuts didn’t work either. So it sounds like stimulus packages, which is what Nicole was starting to say here, is what works.

MS. BELTON: Well, I mean you need money to get something off the ground and get it going. I mean you can cut funds all you like, but if you just don’t have the money there, if you just aren’t able to cover your costs, if you aren’t able to pay workers who can go back and buy consumer goods and get our economic back and going, you’re just stuck.

MS. BENNETT: And I think the real story here is she was pointing out that in a new global economy, where Korea and other nations are making those kinds of industrial investments, in order for us to compete, it’s no longer what – product A costs relative to profit. It’s about what we as a nation can offer to manufacturers and what we can offer to the global economy. I think that’s the real story here.

MS. KUROKAWA: You know, we haven’t bailed out the Kodak factory after – when we switched to digital camera. So the idea that we are bailing out these auto industries to me is problematic. I don’t like seeing the governor pick winners and losers in the corporate market.

(Cross talk.)

MS. NATIVIDAD: There was something – there was something integral to the American identity to somehow help the automobile industry. And this is like the core of America’s strength. We invented the cars. And so somehow, there was a sense you had to save, you know, that particular industry. And frankly, it worked. General Motors is now back on its feet and did an IPO that everybody wanted to get in on.

MS. BENNETT: And paid the country – and paid all the taxpayers back. That’s the real story here.

MS. KUROKAWA: They didn’t pay them back. They used it. They got another government loan to pay them back, so that they can get a green energy loan. I mean this is like – this is a shell game right now. This is – Michigan is not fixed.

MS. BENNETT: Quite frankly, with all due respect, Nicky, I think that your argument is fallacious. I think in a global economy the federal government, as every other country that’s out there competing, has to be willing to make that investment or we would be left way behind at the train station in the global economy.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Let me also say –

MS. KUROKAWA: Where’s the money coming from next, though –

MS. NATIVIDAD: Let me also say that every economist, whether they are Republican or Democrat, has said this is not the time to cut. This is the time to spend. That there should be a long-term deficit reduction plan, but that what we need to do now is to spend money as a country.

MS. DOMINGUEZ: Well, there’s no question that our success is going to depend on our ideas, and to be able to nurture those ideas, innovation, I mean we have to find the right sectors. But at the same time, we have to be careful that we don’t turn the government into the investment banker of our society. And I think that’s the slippery slope on that. We have to be very careful.

MS. BELTON: I don’t agree it’s a slippery slope. I think it’s a balancing act.

MS. BENNETT: Yes, okay.

MS. KUROKAWA: There have not been every economist. There have been Nobel laureates. I mean this is very much a discussion –this is a discussion about the future of our country – will we spend? Will it be a Keynesian economy going forward, or will it be a free market economy going forward? Because what we have right now is the worst of all possible roads. We have a chronic capitalist system where we are picking winners and losers based on special –

MS. DOMINGUEZ: Like Solaris?

(Cross talk.)

MS. BENNETT: Couldn’t disagree with you more.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Well, I disagree, too –

(Cross talk.)

MS. NATIVIDAD: – no, but I do want to ask of you, so what then is the path to getting out of this economic crisis if it is not stimulus spending by the government in order to reenergize –

MS. KUROKAWA: Where is the stimulus money coming from? If we were to do stimulus three, where would the money come from? The money is coming from overseas. The money is coming from our children. And that I think is placing an unfair burden onus.

MS. DOMINGUEZ: Well, I also think that it’s coming from political instability because companies are sitting on a ton of cash and they don’t want to invest because they’re not comfortable with what’s happening.

MS. BENNETT: – and if I could – what’s the biggest problem we have right now? Is a downgrading of our credit by Standard & Poor’s because we had a bunch of newcomers to Congress who were all men virtually, who sat on their hands during this terrifically important decision. And so I think that what’s really critical here is something that all of us would do if we had our own businesses. There’re times to invest and there’re times that you cut back. And I think Granholm hit the nail on the head. You choose what you’re going to do and invest where you have to.

MS. NATIVIDAD: Wonderful. I’m investing. (Laughter.) Governor Granholm and her husband discussed how they switched traditional family roles. We’ll bring you that part of the interview in a few weeks.

That’s it for this edition of To the Contrary. Next week, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor talks about her historic appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Check us out on our website for TTC Extra. Whether your views are in agreement or to the contrary, please join us next time.

(END)